difficulties faced by tertiary level efl learners in listening

British Journal of English Linguistics

Vol.8, No.2, pp.90-112 April 2020

Published by ECRTD-UK

Print ISSN: 2055-6063(Print),

Online ISSN: 2055-6071(Online)

90

DIFFICULTIES FACED BY TERTIARY LEVEL EFL LEARNERS IN LISTENING

Yeakub Ali

Department of English, Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka-1342, Bangladesh

[email protected]

ABSTRACT: Listening comprehension is a prime channel of learning a new language. This

study attempts to find out the difficulties faced by the EFL learners correspond to listening skill

at the tertiary level education of Bangladesh. The study entitled Difficulties Faced by Tertiary

Level EFL Learners in Listening discussed difficulties faced by tertiary level learners in

listening comprehension. The aim of the study was to explore the difficulties encountered by

the students, resulting from several factors such as listening text, listeners’ factor, speakers’

factor, linguistic feature, failure to concentration and physical setting. To analyze and to find

the solution to the problems, the researcher made use of quantitative method. The research

was conducted in public and private universities of Bangladesh. The population of this study

was BA and MA level students’ in the academic year 2019-2020. The number of population

was 60 students from two classes and data were collected through questionnaire. The result of

the study shows that listening is very difficult skill for learners who is keen on learning foreign

language. Understanding students’ difficulties can motivate and help the teachers to improve

effective learning strategies for the students to develop their listening abilities. It also provided

potential solutions to the problems. Firstly, the teacher should adapt and improve listening

materials. Secondly, students’ need to enrich their vocabulary with correct pronunciation,

which will enable them to understand the variety of accents, while practising listening. Thirdly,

the authority concerned should establish language laboratory for practising listening. Besides,

students should gather background knowledge about the topic. The solutions were made as a

suggestion for the teachers, learners, academicians and for the curriculum designer and

material developer. The results of the study may also be useful for those who are interested in

this study.

KEY WORDS: CLT, EFL listening, difficulties, content, listeners, physical setting

INTRODUCTION

The approach to EFL teaching and learning in Bangladesh has experienced dramatic changes

for the past two decades. The objectives of learning English have changed remarkably. The

demand of learning English is rising very fast for global communication. Undeniably, English

as a lingua-franca enhances trade and commerce, job market, higher studies or accessibility to

information. The prime purpose of learning English is to use it as a means of effective

communication both nationally and globally. English as a skill-based subject pivots on four

primary skills-listening, speaking, reading and writing. Effective communication depends on

how competently a person can use the skills.

CLT (communicative language teaching) is one of the effective approach to give equal

emphasize on four skills. Considering the reality, the country adopted Communicative


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Language Teaching (CLT). CLT approach includes four basic principles such as i) personal

engagement ii) interactive co-operation iii) using four skills in real life situation and iv)

learning by doing. Four fundamental skills will be taught in an integrated way in CLT approach

and by practicing these four skills with equal emphasis, the learners are expected to be

proficient in English. But only two skills are practised at our tertiary level education. So the

CLT approach does not serve the purpose of achieving the goal.

Alternatively, the instructors and the learners have a limited scope to practise the four skills.

They are exam oriented and the whole system is liable for this situation. Only reading and

writing skills are subjected to test in the examination. So, they are totally undermining the two

major skills, especially the listening one. This elusive propensity poses a major hindrance to

developing our students’ English listening. The listening skill is one of the dominant skills for

oral communication. The listening skill plays a key role in terms of communication as another

dominant skill i.e. speaking skill builds on the listening skill. Communication pertains to

imparting or exchanging the view, thought, feelings, emotion, opinions, sorrow, happiness etc.

with the others by means of language. In addition to focusing on the forms of the foreign

language, the sound segments, the word forms, and the sentence structures, students have to

keep interaction with the contextual meaning of words. It is frequently thought that English is

topical and content based but English is not a content- based subject; rather it is a skill- based

subject. To be more proficient in English language, tertiary level students have to lay equal

emphasis on acquiring all the four skills.

Learning listening skill will help students to improve speaking skill considerably. If people

want to communicate properly, meaningfully, and naturally they need to listen to various types

of English repeatedly and continuously. It is clear that without listening people cannot acquire

language because listening provides language input. As Rost in Hien (2015) stated listening as

foreign language learning is paramount important since it provides the language input.

Listening plays an important role in students’ language development for its comprehensible

input. Accordingly, teaching listening demands more attention in order to develop students’

language. In some language classroom, listening is considered to be the most difficult language

skill for students because it needs more attention to comprehend the materials that include

understanding dialogue and monologue text. It would be said that listening is a complex process

in which several things happen instantaneously inside the mind. On top of that, the language

instructors play key in learning process. It is the instructors’ responsibility to resolve the

difficulties faced by the students. However, most of the instructors do not pay due attention to

their job. The instructors might consider listening to be less important than other skills.

According to some recent research from Hamouda (2013), Abidin (2013), Anadapong (2011)

who completed the related study, they concluded that in order to help students to improve their

listening ability, language instructor had to understand students’ listening difficulties in

comprehending listening text, and instruct effective listening strategies to help the students to

resolve their listening barriers. As the instructor knows their students’ difficulties, instructor

can play important role in improving their listening. Learners success in listening depend on

how they can assume and solve their difficulties. If the learners know how the difficulties

influence their listening, it could be easy to find the solution.


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The lack of vocabulary, understanding structure, inability to comprehend natural spoken, lack

of confidence, retaining concentration and bad recording are some difficulties faced by the

student. As Hamouda (2013) stated that factors causing students listening comprehension

problem are categorized into different sources including problems related to the listening text,

listening problems related to task and activities, listeners’ problems related to the listener and

teacher’s methodology. Therefore, it was the tactic to find out the students’ difficulties from

three main areas: listener factors, listening material and physical setting. Also, it became

guidance for the teacher to overcome listening comprehension. Thus, on the horizon a study

entitled Difficulties Faced by Tertiary Level EFL Learners in Listening.

Statement of the Problem

The researcher has noticed that EFL students face difficulties in listening comprehension. They

cannot recognize what is being spoken in front of them and do exercises based on it. Students

face difficulty in their listening course, score the lowest marks in listening exams. Not only

that, but also learners find difficulty in understanding what the teacher says in English language

like the given instructions by the teacher in native accent. The researcher finds it important to

explore the difficulties encountered by EFL learners in listening, so that he can find remedies

to better students listening comprehension.

Through the background illustrated above, the problem statement which could be formulated

is ‘what are the difficulties in listening comprehension of Bangladeshi EFL learners?

Objectives of the Study

General Objective

The aim of conducting this study lies in my strong desire to fulfil the researcher’s interest in

the field of mastering the four skills through the investigation into the listening difficulties in

the context of EFL learners with a view to enhancing their competence in communication.

Specific Objectives

The specific research objectives were as follows:

i. To find out problems encountered by tertiary level students in listening.

ii. To identify the real scenario in the treatment of listening comprehension.

iii. To find out the problems which affects understanding listening.

iv. Identifying the listening barriers of Bangladeshi tertiary level learners.

v. To set out the strategies and plans for overcoming difficulties.

Justification of the Study

The result of the research was really expected to give benefit to the reader. Hopefully, pointing

out the difficulties encountered by the students will raise awareness among the teachers and

the learners that finding student difficulties will contribute to teaching and learning listening

comprehension. Furthermore, this research would be useful for other researchers who are

interested in classroom research to use the findings. Also, it would be a guideline for those who

want to conduct the further research about difficulties in listening comprehension.


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Research Question

General Question 1) What are the difficulties encountered by Bangladeshi EFL learners in listening?

Sub Questions 1) What are the difficulties the students face in the listening classes?

2) What listening problems do EFL learners face when listening to spoken English?

3) What are the difficulties they encountered pertaining to background knowledge,

listening materials and physical setting?

Research Hypothesis The research hypothetically presents the listening skill as the most important and the most used

among the four skills. However, tertiary level EFL Learners face various problems in listening

comprehension for a number of reasons such as the quality of listening materials, linguistic

features of language, lack of concentration, the speaker’s accent, the listener’s background

knowledge, psychological factors and physical setting.

Limitation of the Study

Limitation of the research lies in the following areas- constraints of time, inaccessibility to the

tertiary levels Universities, small sample size, lack of confidential information, unavailability

of desired respondents during my needs. As the study is confined only to the difficulties

confronting tertiary level learners, the study is concerned with some issues and areas of English

as a foreign language (EFL) listening. The study encounters some limitations and shortcomings

such as the scarcity of relevant data, information, literature and other necessary materials. The

researcher finds that no formal study or investigation has been carried out in the field of the

EFL listening difficulties at tertiary level. So, the researcher has experienced some difficulties

in finding relevant data to support and correlate the present study.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Yousif (2006) stated in his recent research entitled Listening Comprehension Difficulties as

Perceived. The study explored listening comprehension problems of first year students in a FL

subject matter classroom. Data was collected on the basis of the lecture comprehension

difficulties of these students by means of a short open-ended questionnaire and interview. The

subjects of the study were 50 first-year students majoring in English in their second semester

at Almajmah College of Education. They were admitted to the English department on the merit

of acquiring 80% or more on the school certificate examination. The analysis of the data

provides an index that hinder effective comprehension which are linguistic, conceptual,

discourse, acoustic, environmental and psychological variables. The results of the study have

implications for both EFL teachers and subject matter lecturers in the particular setting in which

it was conducted as well as in similar FL tertiary levels. They discussed several obstacles that

impact comprehension. These are divided into three main areas which are the factors pertaining

to listeners, speakers and texts. Based on the previous research, most the student foreign

language faced the difficulties of listening comprehension. There were many problems

influence them such as problem related to the listening materials, basic linguistic problems

perceived by listeners, the failure to concentrate, the listener, the speaker, physical setting.


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While this research will find out the three factors of them are listening material, listener,

physical setting.

In a recent research Abidin (2013) stated about English listening comprehension (ELC) entitled

English Listening Comprehension Problems of Students from China Learning English in

Malaysia. The researcher used a qualitative method to collect data. Three Chinese students

were selected for an interview on English Listening Comprehension (ELC) in University

Science Malaysian (USM). This study is a research report related to the problems encountered

by Chinese students in ELC learning. The interview was conducted to investigate students’

perspective through the main question pertaining the problems of the Chinese students in their

ELC self-learning process, in three steps, which include the pre-listening, while-listening and

post-listening. The research findings show that the prime difficulties faced by the Chinese

students is the lack of prior knowledge in English vocabulary, and this impedes their

understanding in the listening process. Moreover, the different accents of the native speakers

create complexities in the proper understanding of the listening content. The short span of

concentration, and the learning habits of Chinese students were discussed as the ELC learning

problems.

Anadapong (2011) stated in his research entitled A Study of English Listening Problems and

Listening Proficiency of Business at Bangkok University that the main problems encountered

by learners is listening text in EFL listening. This study was conducted with thirty of Business

student at Bangkok University with the aim investigating their English listening difficulties

and listening proficiency. Questionnaire, IELTS test, and Interview were used in this study to

collect data. As a result, the data was analyzed by using SPSS. The findings of the research

exposed that students main reason caused listening problem is the listening text. However, the

lack of practicing listening skill and the lack of exposure to different kinds of listening materials

were factors that mostly caused listening problems.

In addition, Anderson and Lynch (2003) stated that lack of background knowledge triggered

difficulty in listening comprehension. They claimed that language was the means used by a

community to express their culture beliefs, facts, ideas, rules, opinions, and lifestyle.

Accordingly, the L2 learners have some lacking in target cultures, if L1 learners are not aware

of the different aspects of L2 culture, they would have problems in listening comprehension.

How lack of background knowledge could be a difficulty in listening comprehension Koichi

(2002) gave an example on this issue. He stated that non-native speakers might not understand

the cashiers in American supermarkets when they ask them about what type of bags they would

like to have their purchases in. In fact, non-natives could know the meaning of bag, but it might

be difficult for them to realize its meaning in this context, maybe because they have no such

things in their cultures.

Chen (2002) investigated 190 college students’ difficulties in listening comprehension. He

found out top five problems in listening. First, students focused on figuring out the meaning of

part of the spoken text and missed what came next. Second students, were unable to chunk

streams of speech. Third, they did not recognize words they knew. Fourth, they were not certain

about the key ideas of the text. Fifth, they were unable to form a mental representation from

the words heard. Actually, all these reasons are related to word recognition.


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Hamouda (2013) found in his research entitled An Investigation of Listening Comprehension

Problems Encountered by Saudi Students in the EL Listening Classroom. This research uses

quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection. This study was carried out with the

participation of 60 first-year student majoring in English language and translation at Qassim

University. Their ages range from 20 to 22 years old. Listening comprehension seems to be the

weakest skill and students encounter various kinds of listening problems. Data was gathered

by means of questionnaires and interview. The research found that accent, pronunciation,

speech of speech, insufficient vocabulary, different accent of speaker, lack of concentration,

anxiety, and bad quality of recording were the major listening comprehension difficulties

encountered by EFL Saudi learners.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

Research Setting

This study is a practical one that employs both qualitative and quantitative methods. A

questionnaire administered for EFL learners. The collected data were analyzed statistically and

qualitatively. This study has been conducted by putting together both primary and secondary

sources of data.

Population and Sampling

Population

The population of this study was the second semester students of City University for the

scholastic year 2019-2020 and MA students of Jahangirnagar University. The total number of

the population were 60 which consist of two classes. Both male and female participated with

slightly equal gender breakup.

Sample

The study has made use of random sampling at the time of selecting the respondents. In random

sampling, all populations have the equal chance for being selected in a study. This sample

comprises 60 students- 36 females and 24 males. Cohen, Manion and Morisson (2007) claim

that random sampling involves “choosing the nearest individuals to serve as respondents and

continuing that process until the required sample size has been attained or those who happen

to be available and accessible at the time” (p.113-114). In consistent with the above statement,

the researcher has randomly selected a total of 60 of the participants, all of whom have an equal

chance to be chosen. This method is reliable in valid data collection because it is frequently

applied in language research.

Instrumentation

As mentioned above, the study was carried out with both qualitative and quantitative methods

of data collection. The instruments were used in this study a questionnaire with the subjects.

The questionnaire was set up based on the research question and objective of the study. Open-

ended questions were set up for collecting data. It consists of two sections. The first section

contained 5 questions asked to collect personal information about the participants. The second

section contained 48 questions grouped into seven categories: listening importance


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perceptions, listening text, the listener, the speaker and the physical setting. This questionnaire

was taken from the study of Assaf 2015. The answers were recorded on 5 points likert scale

(strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree).

Data Collection

The data had been collected from various sources such as population, journals, periodicals etc.

As mentioned above, the data was collected through questionnaires from January 09-11, 2020.

This particular section prescribes the complete data collection procedure. The total population

was 60 EFL students. Among them 30 students were chosen from City University, from the

second semester and another 30 from Jahangirnagar University. To facilitate better

comprehension, respondents were briefed on the contents of the questions. The subjects were

asked to identify their listening problems by responding to statements arranged on the basis of

the five-point likert scale (strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree). Oral

instructions were given in both English and Bengali to respondents by the researcher himself

to avoid any misunderstanding. The questionnaire was administered among the respondents in

the classroom. It took about 45 minutes for the students to answer all the questions. Data

collection was done without any interference of the teachers or the researchers. So, the

researcher can guarantee the reliability of the results. Finally, the data obtained from the

questionnaire was presented and frequencies and percentages were calculated. When the data

was collected, the scripts were processed for analysis and interpretation.

Data Analysis

In the present study, the results are presented in the pie charts and tables. Research, a scholarly

investigation or experimentation, aims at discovering new facts and their correct interpretation.

The science of statistics enables the researcher to plan, analyze and interpret the results of the

investigation. It also provides accurate and precise information that piques one’s interest. The

data of the research was collected from the second semester (Hon’s) and Masters students of

the 2019-2020 academic year. Later, the data was organized and analyzed quantitatively. It was

used for obtaining information about the difficulties and problems confronting EFL

Bangladeshi learners in listening. The investigator collected and analyzed the data through

appropriate statistical procedures. First, the data was counted manually, and then it was fed into

the computer for statistical analysis. Survey results have been presented in different ways: by

text, in figures in charts, in tables, graphs, and diagrams.


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DISCUSSION AND FINDINGS

Difficulties Encountered by Bangladeshi EFL Learners in Listening

Students’ Perception to the Importance of Listening

Statement Strongly

Agree %

Agree

%

Neutral

%

Strongly

Disagree

%

Disagree

%

1. I am aware of the

perceived importance

of English listening

skill.

58.33 41.67 0.00 0.00 0.00

2. I find that listening

comprehension is

difficult

31.67 48.33 11.67 1.67 6.67


comprehension is

boring

5 30 31.67 3.33 30


comprehension is

exciting

10 56.67 30 0.00 3.33

5. I received sufficient

training in English

listening at my

university

11.67 31.67 33.33 6.67 16.67

6. I never heard about

listening skill.

0 0 0 50 50

Mean Score 19.44 34.72 17.78 10.28 17.78

Table 1: Results on Students’ perception to the importance of Listening skill

Table one shows that 100% of the students were aware of the importance of listening skill.

When the learners were asked about the difficulty of the listening skill, 31.67% of the learners

strongly agreed and 48.33% agreed that listening comprehension is difficult while 1.67%

strongly disagreed and 6.67% disagreed. On the other hand, 11.67% learners are average

regarding the listening skill. In addition to that, 5% of learners strongly agreed and 30% agreed

that listening comprehension is boring while 66.67% claimed that listening comprehension is

exciting. For item 5, it is found that 43.34% subjects received listening skill at their university

while 23.34% learners did not receive sufficient training in English listening comprehension at

their university and 33.33% are neutral in receiving listening training. For item six, 100%

subjects are familiar with listening skill. So, the findings support that listening is the most

important skill for the tertiary learners. The mean score for the students’ perception on the

importance listening skill has been shown in a chart below.


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Figure 1:Results of the students’ questionnaire

This chart indicates that the highest percentage of students are aware of how much important

listening comprehension is. They find that listening is exciting and refuse that listening is

boring. It is clear from the chart that the effect degree is high for the importance of listening,

the percentage of which is 54.17 and the low effect degree for listening importance, the

percentage of which is 28.06. There is a moderate degree, which is 17.78% for listening

importance.

Listening Difficulties Attributed to the Content of the Listening Text

Item No. Statement Strongly

Agree %

Agree

%

Neutral

%

Strongly

Disagree

%

Disagree

%

7. I find it difficult to

understand listening

texts in which too many

unfamiliar words

33.33 66.67 0.00 0.00 0.00

8. I find listening

comprehension difficult

when the spoken text

contains idioms.

28.33 55.00 8.33 0.00 8.33

9. I find listening


when the spoken text

contains jargon

28.33 55.00 8.33 0.00 8.33

10. I find listening difficult

when utterances contain

different slang

expressions.

11.67 68.33 3.33 6.67 10.00

0.00

20.00

40.00

60.00

Agree %Neutral %

Disagree %

Agree % Neutral % Disagree %

Series1 54.17 17.78 28.06

Mean Score on Students’ perception of the importance of the listening


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99

11. I find listening


when the text contains

complex grammatical

structures.

11.67 48.33 21.67 3.33 15.00

12. I find it difficult when I

listen to long spoken

texts

18.33 55.00 13.33 0.00 13.33

13. I feel tired when I listen

to long spoken text.

15.00 45.00 13.33 3.33 23.33

14. I feel distracted when I

listen to a long spoken

text.

23.33 55.00 5.00 0.00 16.67


understand listening

texts when the topic is

unfamiliar.

23.33 55.00 5.00 0.00 16.67

16. I use my experience and

background knowledge

of the topic to

understand the spoken

text.

41.67 56.67 1.67 0.00 0.00


comprehend every

single word of incoming

speech.

21.67 30.00 13.33 8.33 26.67


understand the whole

listening passage.

13.33 41.67 6.67 15.00 23.33

Mean Score 22.50 52.64 8.33 3.06 13.47

Table 2: Results on Listening problems attributed to the content of the listening text

Difficulties Pertaining to Unfamiliar Words Including Idioms, Jargon, and Slang

Expression

When the students were asked whether the unfamiliar words, including jargon and idioms,

affected the listening comprehension. All of the respondents agreed with this item. Among the

respondents 33.33% strongly agreed and 66.67% agreed that unfamiliar words hindered their

listening comprehension. In addition, idioms and jargon used by native speaker were also

unfamiliar to the learners. Students responded that 83.33% did not understand the idioms and

jargon used by native speaker in listening text while 8.33% did not face problems and

remaining 8.33% are neutral. On the other hand, a small portion of respondents faced problems

in slang expression which percentage was 80% while 16.67% did not face problems in slang

expression and the remaining portion 3.33% are neutral. The research finding is consistent with

what most of language researchers’ opinion that the fundamental problem of listening


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comprehension lies with limited vocabulary. The data also support the view of Underwood

(1989) that lack of vocabulary is an obstacle for most students to listening comprehension.

Difficulties Pertaining to Complex Grammatical Structures

In the table 2, item no 11, respondents were asked whether the complicated syntactic rules and

structures hampered the learners’ listening comprehension. The majority of the respondents

60% have agreed that complex grammatical structures affected their listening comprehension

while 15% responded that it was not problematic and 3.33% were in a moderate degree of

response. These percentages show that complex grammatical structures also caused many

hurdles to listening comprehension. These percentages show that complex grammatical

structures also caused many hurdles to listening comprehension. This view matches Vogely’s

point of view (1998) which shows that the structural component of the text brings difficulty in

listening comprehension apparently.

Difficulties Pertaining to Long Spoken Text

L2 learners’ listening may be hampered when the learners get tired of long spoken text.

Particularly, in academic listening, the listener may get tired while trying to understand

unfamiliar sounds for long periods of time. The majority of respondents 78.33% stated in the

item No 12,13 and 14 that they got tired and distracted when they listened to a long spoken text

while 13.33% respondents disagreed with this and 13.33% gave moderate response. Thus, the

long spoken text distracts listener from listening.

Difficulties Pertaining to Unfamiliar Topic and Background Knowledge

Table 2 shows that 97% of respondents often use their experiences and schemata to understand

the spoken text and 79% of respondents face problems in listening text with unfamiliar topic.

This finding goes in parallel with Hasan (2000) point of view, ‘‘Associating newly heard

information with prior knowledge is a powerful and very frequently used way to guess the

meaning of a listening passage.’’ Samuels (1984) asserted that lack of basic schemata can cause

problems in listening comprehension.

Figure 2:Results from the Students questionnaire

From the table 2, researcher got findings towards the students’ problems pertaining to the

content of the listening text. The above chart shows that the effect degree is high in

Agree %

Neutral %

Disagree %

0.0050.00

100.00

1

Agree % 75.14

Neutral % 8.33

Disagree % 16.53

Mean Score on Listening problems attributed to the content of the listening text


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comprehending the content of listening text whose percentage is 75.14% while 8.33% is

moderate degree and 16.53% is low effect degree. Thus, the majority percent 75.14 do not

understand the listening text due to lack of vocabularies, complex grammatical structures, long

spoken text, and lack of background knowledge.

Listening Difficulties Related to Linguistic Features Item

No.

Statement Strongly

Agree %

Agree

%

Neutral

%

Strongly

Disagree

%

Disagree

%

19. I find pronunciation familiar

but cannot recognize the

words.

15.00 61.67 15.00 3.33 5.00

20. I find it difficult to recognize

the signals, which indicate that

the speaker is moving from

one point to another.

11.67 53.33 11.67 1.67 21.67

21. I stop listening and start

thinking about the meaning of

the word when encountering

an unknown word.

36.67 43.33 11.67 1.67 6.67

22. I find it difficult to infer the

meaning of unknown word

while listening.

31.67 50.00 10.00 1.67 6.67

23. I find it difficult to follow the

sequence of the spoken when

the sentence are too long and

complex.

28.33 48.33 15.00 0.00 8.33

Mean Score 24.67 51.33 12.67 1.67 9.67

Table 3:Results on listening problems attributed to linguistic feature

Difficulties Pertaining to the ‘Prosodic Features’ of the English Language

Table 3, shows that 76.67% of students fail to recognize the words even when they find familiar

pronunciation. It also shows that this finding goes in similar with Brown’s (1992) point of view

that stress, rhythm and intonation are very important for comprehension.

Difficulties Pertaining to the Use of Signal Words

Table 3 portrays that 65% students of the whole number do not understand the signals when

the speaker moves from one point to another. Thus, the students get confused in their listening

comprehension. Gilakjani and Ahmadi (2011) viewed that in informal situations or

spontaneous conversations, signals are vaguer as in pauses, gestures, increased loudness, a

clear change of pitch, or different intonation patterns. These signals can be missed especially

by less proficient listeners.

Difficulties Pertaining to the Use of Unknown Words

While encountering an unknown vocabulary, the majority of students (80%) tend to stop

listening and begins to ponder over the meaning of the word. As a result, they fail to follow

the speech and miss important information. Finally, they get distracted from the rest of the text.


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Underwood (1989) mentions that failure to recognize words also results from students’

inability 'to segment the word out of connected speech.

Figure 3:Results from the students’ questionnaire

The above chart shows that the high effect degree for listening problems related to linguistic

features is 76% while the low effect degree is 11% and the moderate degree is 13%. These

findings represent that the majority of the EFL learners have faced problems in listening

comprehension due to unknown words, pronunciation and signal words like moreover, in

addition, thus, but and further. In fact, the above results indicate that unfamiliar pronunciation

for familiar words is the major hindrance that confront learners while listening comprehension.

Listening Difficulties Caused by the Failure to Concentrate Item No. Statement Strongly

Agree %

Agree

%

Neutral

%

Strongly

Disagree %

Disagree

%

24. I lose focus of the talk

when I have an expected

answer in my mind.

26.67 48.33 11.67 0.00 13.33

25. I am unable to concentrate

because I look for the

answers and listen to the

dialogue at the same time.

18.33 43.33 18.33 5.00 15.00

26. I lose my concentration

when the text is too long.

30.00 35.00 16.67 0.00 23.33

27. I lose my concentration If

the recording is in a poor

quality.

40.00 46.67 8.33 1.67 3.33

28. I lose the flow of speech

because I concentrate very

hard on understanding

every word or phrase I

hear.

20.00 53.33 15.00 1.67 10.00

Mean Score 27.00 45.33 14.00 1.67 13.00

Table 4: Results on listening problems caused by losing concentration

Agree %76%

Neutral %13%

Disagree %11%

Other11%

Mean Score on listening problems related to linguistic features



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Difficulties Pertaining to the loss of Concentration Which Results from Looking for an

Answer

Respondents have expressed that there are many reasons which affect their concentration

during the listening task. 75% agree that they lose focus of the spoken discourse when they

have got an expected answer in mind while 61% think that they face this problem because at

the same time they look for the answer what they have listened and listening to the rest of the

dialogue.

Difficulties Pertaining to the Poor- Quality Recordings

The majority of the students 86.67% think that the difficulties they encounter in listening

comprehension results from the poor recording quality. This happens due to the recording’s

noises or the listening tool used for such a long time. As a result, poor-quality equipment

interferes with the listener’s comprehension.

Difficulties Pertaining to Focus Loss Which Results from Trying to Understand Every

Words

When the students try to understand each and every single word, they lose concentration. 73%

of participants agreed that they lose concentration when they try to find meaning of every single

word. In listening comprehension, two things- one is listening and another is thinking- take

place simultaneously. Thus if student try for comprehending every single word, they may lose

their concentration.

Figure 4: Results from the students’ questionnaire

This chart indicates that learners are unable to comprehend listening due to losing their

concentration. In this section, average 72.33% learners agreed that they lost their concentration

in listening comprehension because of their trend to understand every single word, low quality

recordings and looking for expected answer in their mind.

0.00 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 50.00 60.00 70.00 80.00

Agree %

Neutral %

Disagree %

Mean score of listening problems caused by failure to concentrate


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104

Listening Difficulties Related to listener


Agree %

Agree

%

Neutral

%

Strongly

Disagree

%

Disagree

%

29. I find it difficult to get a

general understanding of

the spoken text from the

first listening

13.33 48.33 8.33 6.67 23.33


predict what would

come next at the time of

listening.

18.33 46.67 18.33 1.67 15.00

31. I stop listening when I

have problems in

understanding a

listening text.

18.33 45.00 6.67 10.00 20.00


recognize the words I

know because of the way

they are pronounced.

20.00 56.67 11.67 1.67 10.00

33. I find it difficult to tell

where one word finishes

and another begins, there

are words that I would

normally understand in

writing, but when I hear

them in a stream of

speech.

15.00 43.33 20.00 5.00 16.67

34. I feel anxious when I

listen to spoken texts.

13.33 40.00 10.00 15.00 21.67

35. I find listening


when I am not interested.

21.67 65.00 1.67 3.33 8.33

36. I fear that I cannot

understand what I will

hear before doing

listening comprehension

tasks.

16.67 50.00 23.33 3.33 11.67

Mean Score 17.08 49.38 12.50 5.83 15.83

Table 5: Results on problems related to listener

Difficulties Pertaining to First Listening and Prediction

The table 5 showed that 63.33% of the students claimed that they stop listening when they have

problems in understanding a listening text. Harmer (2000) reported that some of his students

lose interest in listening and some of them stop it. It is then the teacher’s job to make the


Vol.8, No.2, pp.90-112 April 2020




105

students get interested by boosting up their confidence and make sure that they can achieve

success in listening. The portion of 61.66% learner get confused when they do not have general

understanding on first listening and 65% learner do not predict what would come next at the

time of listening.

Difficulties Pertaining to the Stream of Speech

Learners find it difficult to tell where one word finishes and another begins, there are words

that the learners would normally understand in writing, but when they hear them in a stream of

speech, the table 5 indicates that 58% learners cannot comprehend. Without having repetitions,

they cannot understand the stream of speech.

Difficulties Pertaining to the Fear and Anxiety

Most of the learners feel anxious and fearful before starting a listening text. When they listen,

they get tired. Table 5 indicates that 53% learners become anxious and afraid while listening

but they can recognize the printed written text. Thus, it may affect the learners listening

comprehension.

Difficulties Pertaining to the Lack of Interest

In the table 5, 86.67% learners agreed that it is difficult to understand the spoken text when it

is not interesting enough and only 11. 66% state that they can easily overcome this difficulty.

This may happen due to the types of listening exercises which always remain the same.

Listeners feel bored because of the repetition of the same exercises or the text is quite unknown

to them. Hamouda (2013) asserted that motivation is an important factor in understanding the

topic of the spoken text.


The above chart interprets that 66.46% listener thinks that they cannot understand listening

properly due to the problems related to the listener. Lack of interest, fear and anxiety, the stream

of speech, first listening and prediction problems are pregnant with the listener. Most of the

learners face difficulties in these situations which are indicated by the above chart.

A G R E E % N E U T R A L % D I S A G R E E %

66.46

12.521.67

MEAN SCORE OF LISTENING PROBLEMS RELATED TO LISTENER


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106

1.1.1 Listening Difficulties Related to the Speaker Item

No.

Statement Strongly

Agree %

Agree

%

Neutral

%

Strongly

Disagree

%

Disagree

%

37.

I find it difficult to

understand the natural

speech which is full of

hesitation and pauses.

21.67 46.67 18.33 5.00 8.33

38.


understand the meaning of

words which are not

pronounced clearly.

26.67 61.67 10.00 0.00 1.67

39.


understand the meaning of

the spoken text without

seeing gestures.

11.67 58.33 13.33 3.33 13.33

40.

I have difficulty

understanding speakers with

unfamiliar accents.

26.67 60.00 8.33 1.67 3.33

41.


understand when speakers

speak too fast.

26.67 51.67 11.67 3.33 6.67

42.


understand the recorded

material if it is not repeated.

25.00 45.00 16.67 5.00 8.33

43.


understand the listening text

when the speaker does not

pause long enough.

23.33 50.00 16.67 1.67 8.33

44.


understand spoken texts that

have unfamiliar stress and

intonation patterns.

23.33 60.00 13.33 0.00 3.33

Mean Score 23.13 54.17 13.54 2.50 6.67

Table 6:Results related to speaker

Difficulties Pertaining to Hesitations and Pauses

Natural dialogues are full of hesitations, pauses, and intonation. Table 6 shows that most of the

students 68.34% agree that they face difficulties in understanding natural speech which is full

of hesitations and pauses. This is in line with the findings of previous researches. Hasan (2000)

indicates that hesitations and pauses in spontaneous speech lead to perceptual problems and

comprehension errors for the non-native speakers.

Difficulties Pertaining to Unclear Pronunciation

Many students think that unclear pronunciation causes much difficulty for them in

understanding their English listening. 88.34% respondents agree that it is difficult to


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107

understand the meanings of words which are not pronounced clearly. Unclear pronunciation of

some speakers is also considered as a source of listening problem (as cited in Hamouda, 2013).

Difficulties Pertaining to Speed of Delivery

Most of the students 78.34% of the whole number agree that when a speaker speaks very fast,

it is difficult for them to comprehend what is being said. On the other hand, only 10% of them

disagree that it is not a learning obstacle. Underwood (1989) claimed that students absolutely

encounter certain difficulties in listening comprehension since they cannot keep pace with the

speed at which the speakers speak.

Difficulties Pertaining to Variety of Accents

Different accents cause difficulties to students in listening comprehension since they do not

have much exposure to various accents. Table 5.6 shows that majority of students; 86.67%

agree that they have faced problems for a variety of accent because they are exposed to the

accent of their own teachers, not to the native speakers while only 5% of them disagree with

this view.

Difficulties Pertaining to Stress and Intonation

As shown in Table 6, most of the respondents 83.33% of total participants agree that they do

not understand spoken text due to intonation pattern. This finding goes in consonance with the

view of Brown (1992) who said that: stress, rhythm and intonation are very important for

comprehension.

.


Aforementioned chart indicates that 77% learners faced problems related to the speaker.

Students agreed that speaking unclearly and gliding over some words, speaking using

unfamiliar accents, speaking fast are notable problems they face in listening comprehension.

In addition, they think that natural speech is full of hesitation and pauses, not seeing the

speaker’s body language, not repeating what is being said more than one time and not pausing

long enough are considered real problems of listening comprehension.

77%

14%

9%9%

MEAN SCORE OF LISTENING PROBLEMS ATTRIBUTED TO THE SPEAKER

Agree %

Neutral %

Disagree %


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108

Listening Difficulties Related to the Physical Setting


Agree %

Agree

%

Neutral

%

Strongly

Disagree

%

Disagree

%


concentrate with noises

around.

40 50 6.67 0.00 3.33


understand English

when there are unclear

sounds resulting from a

poor quality tape

recording.

53.33 38.33 5 0.00 3.33


concentrate when the

class room is not

conditioned.

28.33 41.67 11.67 5 13.33


understand English

when there are unclear

sounds resulting from

poor acoustic conditions

of the classroom.

33.33 55 10 0.00 1.67

Mean Score 39 46 8.33 1 5.42

Table 7:Results on listening problems related to physical setting

Difficulties Pertaining to Internal and External Noises

Hamouda (2013) asserted that noise is another environmental barrier to comprehension.

Interior as well as exterior class noise pose an obstacle to listening comprehension. Both

background noises on the recording and noise from surroundings may distract the listener’s

attention off the content of the listening passage. Because of the noise coming from corridors

and other classes, some students experience difficulty in listening to the teachers’ voices. As a

result of the noise from recording material inside the classroom, a great number of students

90% claim that they cannot concentrate on listening. If the listening task is carried out with

noises around, it does not bring a good result in listening. First, they feel distracted by the noise,

no matter how hard they try to focus on the task. Moreover, the noise results in a complex of

sounds instead of the clear recording being played. All these constraints prevent the students

from hearing and focusing on the task.

Difficulties Pertaining to Poor Quality Tapes Recording

The majority of the students 91.66% agree that the difficulties they encounter in listening

comprehension occur due to the bad recording quality / poor quality tapes recording. Thus,

poor-quality equipment may interfere with the listener’s comprehension (as cited in Hamouda,

2013).


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109

Figure 7: Results from Student Questionnaire

The above chart interprets, most of the students 85% fully agreed that where they listen the

quality of listening equipment and the classroom condition play important role in listening

comprehension. Almost all students agreed that it hinders listening comprehension.

The present study unveils some lapses and mismatches between the expectations and the

existing conditions of English listening skill at the tertiary level education. During the study

considerable correlations as well as contradictions are observed between the students on

different issues on learning listening skill. The findings of the study are presented below:

There are many factors that contribute to the difficulties in listening comprehension. Lack of

recognizing words, unfamiliarity of topics, poor grammatical structures, fast rate of speech,

variety of accents, lack of vocabularies are the fundamental factors that hinder listening

comprehension. Another important point is that students feel anxious and get afraid while

listening sometimes. And they stop their listening when they do not understand the native

speaker.

Recommendations

Considering the findings, the researcher suggests some recommendations for the students,

teachers, ministry of education and curriculum designer, university administration and finally

for the further researchers.

Recommendation for the Teachers and Students

Motivation is a great tonic of energizing to do every work. As EFL learners

motivation is needed for learning English skills. Listening is the most crucial among the four

skills. So, tertiary level EFL learners should be motivated to develop their listening skill.

Learners can come forward with positive motivation to drive away the anxiety, fear and losing

concentration in the listening skill. In teaching listening, teachers should give

maximum importance to the listening process.

According to the above findings, in learning listening skill prior knowledge plays an important

role and our students should develop their prior knowledge. In this regards, teachers should

help students to grow prior knowledge regarding the listening materials, so that learners can be

0

20

40

60

80

100


Series1 85 8.33 6.42

AX

IS T

ITLE

Mean Score of listening problems related to the physical setting


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110

able to connect their background knowledge with the listening activities. Teachers should make

easy the context for the learners so that the learners feel interest with to learn listening skills.

Prediction is another important factor in learning listening. Learners who can predict which

speech or information are coming next more successful in listening. It helps students to foster

their exposure to listening skill. Teachers should encourage learners in predicting the listening

text.Using authentic materials is important to develop our students listening skill. In this regard

our teachers should use interesting recordings in the classroom, otherwise student can lose their

interest in listening. One material should be listened to repeatedly so that the learners may be

able to recognize the sounds and words.

The limited stock of vocabularies hinders students listening. Our sincere suggestion for the

teacher regarding vocabulary that they should encourage the learners to increase their stock of

words. Understanding the difficult words meaning is important things. To build up fat-cat stock

of vocabularies, teachers should encourage the students regularly. As English is a skill based

subject, any skill can be developed through perfect practice. The more exposure the learners

will get, the more they will be competent. Students should not practice listening only in the

classroom. The teachers are not only responsible in motivating students practice for the

development of listening but also self-motivation is needed for extensive listening. They can

be encouraged to watch English movies, song, sports commentary and listen to BBC and CNN

news etc.

Poor grammatical structures hinder learners’ listening skill. Students cannot comprehend the

long and complex sentence due to their limitation in grammatical structures. Regarding this

problem encountered by EFL learners, our suggestion is to practice long sentence with subtitle

audio recordings. It can help learners to improve listening long sentence. For the

comprehension of complex structures, there is no alternative without practising grammar.

Last but not the least, student face problems with the variety of accents. Teachers should inspire

their student to be introduced with different types of accent via radio, or internet based channel.

Specially they should introduce with British, American and Australian accent. It is more

effective path for comprehending accent.

Recommendation for the Education Ministry and Curriculum Designer

Among the four skills, listening comes first. This skill is considered to be the key skill which

also enhances speaking skill. But in the context of Bangladesh both listening and speaking skill

are neglected enormously. So, the education ministry and curriculum designer both should

emphasize on listening skill. The listening skill should be made compulsory in the secondary

and higher secondary education so that student can perform well at the tertiary level where they

need to hear lots of teachers’ instruction, announcements, lectures, and presentation etc.

Curriculum and syllabus designer should include English listening as a subject where

evaluation and tests would be taken on listening. Some interesting materials should be made to

facilitate learning listening.

Recommendation for the Further Researcher

It is hoped that more research would carry out with large sample size because the

sample size was too small to generalize an overall conclusion applying to all EFL learners.


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111

It is recommended that more research have to be conducted on how to improve listening

skills in the EFL context.

CONCLUSION

The present study is an overall attempt to sketch out a picture of EFL listening problems among

the learners of Bangladesh. The present study has identified many problems regarding EFL

listening. The researcher attempts to present the findings of the current study and puts some

recommendations with a view to overcoming the existing problems or at least lessening the

severity of the problems.

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difficulties faced by tertiary level efl learners in listening

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